Having grown up during the 16-year spell starting in 1974 during which England did not win a single Test against West Indies, you can imagine my relief when I turned up to play in Wisden Cricket Monthly's 20th anniversary match in 1999 and found I had been allocated to Colin Croft's team. My memories of listening to England's 1981 Caribbean tour were peppered with the reports of Croft's ability to bowl from so wide on the crease that his knack of deriving sadistic bounce from any pitch left batsmen feeling they had targets drawn on their helmets. Writing about his experiences on that tour, Geoffrey Boycott said that the only preparation that would genuinely set players up to face the West Indies quartet was standing in the fast lane of the M1 and attempting to dodge the traffic.

Yet while the team never prospered, some batsmen withstood the onslaught. Boycott, with impeccable courage and flawless technique, at least since he had jettisoned the hook, scored a century in Antigua. Graham Gooch, full of grief after the death during the tour of Kenny Barrington, the team's coach, biffed a sizzling hundred in Barbados and another in Jamaica, where David Gower played England's innings of the series to save the match with 154 not out.

Gower's partner in a fourth-wicket century stand was Peter Willey, one of those unfortunate souls whose Test careers were restricted by being pigeon-holed as a West Indies specialist. Possessing grit to an almost imprudent degree, he was allegedly the only member of the team whose physical strength made Ian Botham uncharacteristically discreet when looking for butts for practical jokes. Willey took on West Indies in unorthodox style and what started off as a two-eyed stance soon became two-shouldered, before finally evolving into a two‑nippled one that gave the impression he was playing French cricket. It was ugly but effective and he too scored a century in Antigua that had Tony Cozier on Test Match Special exalting his courage.

Ridiculous as it sounds, England's 2–0 series defeat was seen as a failure, if not by those of us who had been petrified by the snippets of coverage at the end of News at Ten. By 1986, however, the touring party would probably have warranted a triumphal march from Heathrow to Lord's if they had come back with a couple of draws. West Indies' tour of England in 1984 changed perceptions: this was no longer a bowling attack that bravery could counter, but one that was universally feared. The injuries sustained by Andy Lloyd and Paul Terry were evidence enough that they had become unplayable to all but Allan Lamb.

The 1986 tour was a debacle, one that was monopolised by the rotters in the tabloid press looking for photo opportunities of the defeated players sipping Del Boy-type fruit-laden cocktails to run beside headlines of the "Another day in paradise" nature. Instead of being portrayed as a team that stood no chance against a barrage of intimidating bowling and the quicksilver scoring of Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards, they were depicted as inept and gutless.

All that changed at last in 1990, two years after another drubbing in 1988, that farcical summer of four captains. The Sabina Park Test in 1990 was the first televised live on Sky and, though I sagged off work and went to the pub expecting nothing more than the traditional humiliation, I sat agog as Angus Fraser ripped through the West Indies batting line-up. It was the redemption all England supporters sought and over the next few years parity was earned; then, thrillingly, came dominance.

But our attitude soon changed. Across three decades it has gone from respect, to fright, to a short interlude of joy at England's ascendancy, to worrying about the future of Caribbean cricket. Tours in the past were fraught with danger, but concerns for the wellbeing of the game in the West Indies temper most cricket lover's enjoyment of the boot being on the other foot.

Croft, the enforcer of the first great West Indies four-pronged attack, has turned into an articulate and shrewd analyst of the demise of the team. The hostility and viciousness that characterised his bowling have been shed and he comes across as an avuncular if critical commentator. He still carries an aura of menace, though, and I was not the first player to cower in his withering stare. When I returned to the pavilion after a five-ball duck to find that our captain had scoffed my tea as a pudding to the one he had already eaten, I knew not to complain. I was just grateful that I had got off lightly compared with the Boys of '81.